


i have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night

by Woahsos



Category: All Time Low (Band)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Rated teen for language, Stream of Consciousness, idk man they just have some conversations under the stars, pure fucking romance babey, talk about the stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28825809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woahsos/pseuds/Woahsos
Summary: “If we lived forever,” Jack starts. “Like, together. Would we be in love forever?”
Relationships: Jack Barakat/Alex Gaskarth
Comments: 10
Kudos: 16





	i have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to [bella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellawritess) for letting me read this out loud to her. it's just some conversations under the stars.

“Come sit outside with me,” Alex not-so-subtly demands. 

It’s late. The streetlights are on and every channel is playing talk shows or the news or reruns of  _ Jeopardy! _ . Jack’s eyelids are starting to get heavy, his limbs lethargic along with his brain, and he’s been debating falling asleep on the couch for a few minutes now. 

But Alex is standing in front of him, hand outstretched, smiling face taking up all of Jack’s sight. 

So he takes his hand and follows him outside.

They take the blanket from the back of the truck in the garage and spread it out on the lawn, awkwardly sitting on top of it. Jack takes the initiative to lay down and tugs Alex down against him, reveling in the way he curls into his side, the way he does every night. Looking up, there’s a smattering of stars against the black sky, which is a view Jack was never privy to in LA. For a moment, he falls right back in love with Maryland. For a moment, he thinks he understands Alex a little better.

Every day, he understands Alex a little better than the day before. He keeps on discovering things about Alex that help him understand, help his love grow: his habits, his thoughts, his patterns of speech under different circumstances.

“I’ve always loved the stars,” Alex whispers.

“ I know,” Jack whispers back. And he does. He’s always known, almost since the moment they met. The first time they hung out after school, Alex had gone on for a solid ten minutes about astrology and constellations and space discoveries, the impact of the moon landing and how much Alex wished he could go to the moon. And Jack had sat on his bed and watched and listened, in love already without knowing it yet.

He looks back up at the sky and tries to see what Alex sees. All he sees is stars, and he sees enough of those everyday in Alex. Full, bright constellations that make up his mind, a multitude of supernovas with every heartbeat. Besides, Alex is solid and compact; Jack can see all of him whenever he wants. He can reach out and touch and hold, keep all the warmth to himself. Because, as much as Alex belongs to the universe, he belongs more to Jack. Space, the stars, are their own thing. Unpredictable and operating under no laws of anything except for what they decide.

“Doesn’t it scare you? Even a little?” Jack asks.

Alex turns his head up, nose nudging up at Jack’s jaw. “What?”

Jack waves his hand up at the sky, pale against the dark background of the world in front of them. Maybe he should try to tan more. “All of that, up there. The infinite oblivion of it all. It’s so big, and we’re so small. Never, in  _ our  _ lifetime, will we know everything there is to know about it. Not even close.”

Alex hums, considering it, though Jack bets he doesn’t really need to. But this is what Alex likes to do, consider and reconsider and then reconsider again. Always thinking and considering and taking in every view. Jack doesn’t understand; he decides on an opinion and sticks to it. Which is probably one of the many reasons he’s lucky to have Alex, who always makes him see a different side of things, maybe change his opinion when he’s being lazy or stubborn. In return, Jack is there to keep Alex steady when he gets a little too floaty, really starts trying to reach the moon.

“Not really,” Alex finally says. “I don’t need to know everything about space. Or about anything. If I wanted that, I’d want to live forever, and I don’t want to do that. Just as long as I learn as much as I can, I’m fine. Does it scare you?”

Does it scare him? He guesses not. “I guess not.”

He’s never thought too much about it until right now, and he still doesn’t feel any particular way about it. Jack learns things as they come to him, only going out of his way if it interests him or if he’s bored. On the opposite end of the spectrum, he’s walked into rooms to find Alex fixed determinedly to his laptop screen, countless tabs open, researching something. More times than he can count, Alex gets fixed on a thought and has to look further into it, and usually dumps all of the information onto Jack, who sits and listens happily. He absorbs none of it, which Alex knows, but he likes hearing Alex talk, especially when he’s invested. And he’s usually interested at the time of Alex telling him.

Sue him if he forgets it all two minutes after Alex finishes.

“Why wouldn’t you want to live forever?”

Alex has turned back to look at the sky, but Jack feels the tilt of his head at the question. “I’d see everyone I loved die. That’d suck”

“You’d meet new people to love.”

“And then I’d watch them die. And what if the world explodes? I’m still living, floating in space.”

“You’d love that.”

“Not forever.”

Jack hums. He thinks Alex is right; living forever would suck. Unless he got to live forever with Alex. They’d find things to do, they could do anything they’d want and it’d be great. They’d be in love forever. He hopes.

“If we lived forever,” Jack starts. “Like, together. Would we be in love forever?”

Alex thinks. Jack can hear the wheels in his head turning, directing the scenes, going over it, considering every situation he can. If he were anyone else, any less confident (or if he cared more about this hypothetical situation), he thinks he’d probably be offended at the fact that Alex didn’t immediately answer with an affirmative. As it stands, he doesn’t care all that much. Alex loves him now, in this life they have, and that’s all Jack really needs. 

“We’d get annoyed with each other. Like, a lot.”

“Well, duh.”

Alex thinks a little more. Almost instinctively, Jack turns to look at him. But, for some indiscernible reason, he can’t. They’ve built this little bubble, this little monument beneath the stars that’s so easy and peaceful, Jack can’t break it. Alex can move all he wants, but not Jack, lest he disturb Alex. He imagines that if he moved even a finger, Alex would break apart and fit himself into the sky in front of them, up among the stars where he belongs. “I think we’d still be in love. I don’t know why we wouldn’t be.”

“You could fall out of love with me,” Jack says. Alex opens his mouth, but Jack interrupts. “Or I could fall out of love with you.”

“Well,” Alex starts. There’s going to be an argument and it’s going to be so sound that Jack will feel so small against the celestial body that is Alex Gaskarth. Always so careful and considerate with what he’s going to say, even when it’s not going to matter. Or maybe it does. Maybe everything they say matters, has some impact on what happens next. That’s probably what Alex would say and he would make such a  _ good  _ argument for it too. “So, okay. The point of life, I think, is to grow. We grow from the moment we’re born until the moment we die, both physically and mentally. Like, we’re always learning and expanding our minds and opinions and all that. So, if we lived forever, we’d keep changing as people and as a couple. And, yeah, we might not like who we change into. But...we also might. We’d keep falling in love with new things about each other. So, yes, we’d still be in love.”

Jack notes how he switches from using  _ we might _ to  _ we would _ . And it’s a good fucking argument, just like he knew it would be. His heart beats so hard he knows Alex can feel it. Mostly because Alex places his hand over it and laughs a little, which only makes it beat even harder. “I’d want to live forever with you.” Jack says.

Alex hums. “I still wouldn’t want to live forever.”

The laugh breaks from Jack’s chest, breaks their moment and their bubble and their monument, but Alex doesn’t explode into a million particles lightyears away. He stays right by Jack’s side and laughs along with him and presses a kiss to his cheek. He’s solid; Jack pulls him closer because he’s  _ here  _ and he’s  _ solid _ .

“I must be the luckiest man in the world,” Jack says. He doesn’t know where the thought comes from, but now that it’s here he has to say it. Alex has to know. Well, Jack hopes he knows already, but he has to make sure Alex knows.

“Oh yeah?” Alex asks. “Why’s that?”

“Because, there’s all this. This neverending universe with so much possibility, and I still ended up with you.”

“ _ Oh _ ,” Alex whispers. 

He curls in closer and Jack just holds him tighter and takes in everything Alex isn’t saying. Alex has said enough tonight; Jack knows he’s probably getting tired, ready to turn in and keep his mouth closed for a little while.

So, he picks Alex up, who picks up the blanket, and carries him over to the truck so they can put the blanket back. And he carries him inside, placing him gently on the bed, and crawls in beside him. He pulls the covers up over them as Alex presses another kiss to his cheek, and then they’re falling asleep. And Jack dreams of stars and love and a whole life spent with Alex.

**Author's Note:**

> alrighty alrighty come find me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/escapesos) if you'd like <3
> 
> title from the poem "the old astronomer" by sarah williams


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